Good Live-Action Anime? Alita: Battle Angel (2019) Review

Directed by: Robert Rodriguez
Written by: Robert Rodriguez, James Cameron, Laeta Kalogridis
Starring: Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Keean Johnson
IMDb Link

Live-action anime movies are generally pretty terrible; from Dragonball Evolution to Fullmetal Alchemist to Death Note, these movies have ranged from utterly painful to almost passable, and never anything more than that. With that in mind, when I say that Alita: Battle Angel, is actually quite good, you understand by what it compares to how monumental a success that it was even good at all.

The story follows Alita, a cyborg woman discovered in a scrap heap and revived, only to find that she has no memory of her past life. In the dystopian slum that is her new home, she must discover who she is amid the cyberpunk bounty hunters, Robocop patrol robots, and fast-paced metal death games that make up her home.

As a piece of pure, unadulterated action, this movie is pulse-poundingly excellent. The action is relentless when it happens; a fight kicks off with a moment of slow motion before launching in to an all-out cyborg brawl that at once tries to illicit the idea of pure chaos and tries to anchor you to moments of comedy and heroism between swaths of pure mechanical violence, and death races are treated as fun past-times where getting your metal body shredded  to pieces is just part of the fun and then juxtaposed between the very real implications of such an event and what it says about the world, as well as complete change of pace and perspective when Alita herself jumps on to the track. Because it's all metal, the film just lets the violence explode on-screen without a need to worry about it feeling real, and as a result the ebb and flow of fights aren't constantly cutting to avoid showing the consequences of the violence. Everything about the action packs a punch.

In terms of story, the thing that makes this worthwhile is the wonderful title character. It's a fairly generic and straightforward plot that seems to pack in as many tropes as it can until it's almost bursting at the seams, rising and falling so many times that the movie feels a little out of breath by the end, but even as interest in the world and other characters begin to falter, Alita remains as an effective through-line for each and every story beat, literally holding the movie together with her insanely strong cyborg heart. For every moment where the movie feels the need to flatly explain the extended details of the world and lore, we get a sweet character moment where Alita wins the hearts of every dog lover in the world, showing her total purity and naivete without someone needing to point it out. Even the moments where this didactic childlike approach to doing right at all times could potentially feel trite ultimately work, largely because the film is self-aware enough to challenge and trial her worldview, and most importantly because of the heart-achingly honest mo-cap performance of Rosa Salazar. I can't imagine this will be the same for everyone, but I found that the the mo-cap animation was relatively seamless (at least for the sake of suspension of disbelief), and that even if it hadn't been, the approach Salazar took to the character made her the source of strength the movie needed her to be. Every line, no matter how cliche or potentially clunky, it delivered with the utmost certainty, selling you on the idea that Alita at least believes in what she says, no matter how ridiculous it might sound, even in-universe. She's passionate, and commanding, and a little bit flippant, and of these aspects are challenged over and over in such a way that no character step feels unearned. As a movie about Alita, Alita is a success.

This extends to much of what is immediately in proximity to Alita. Chrisoph Waltz is appropriately stern yet soft as surrogate father Dr. Ido, and the interplay of their relationship, while fairly predictable, is also filled with such genuine warmth that the lack of originality doesn't matter. A scene where Ido, having learned to let Alita go, tries his best to support her and stifles his own protective nature for her sake, and her newfound understanding of such an action is made sublime by the exchange between the two, the spoken and unspoken words, their expressions, it's all so surprisingly real in this high-octane movie where robots smash each other for spectacle.

That said, not everything else is quite as strong. Alita's love interest Hugo, while occasionally appearing as more than the broad archetype he was set up as, is performed only serviceably by Keean Johnson, never standing out in a way that makes the character particularly interesting and only worthwhile as he stands in relation to Alita; his worth as a character is entirely in how his existence challenges and re-defines how Alita thinks, and that's fine, but nothing more. Likewise, lore and story that don't directly relate to Alita  are relatively uninteresting because they only get delivered through clunky dialogue that feels like its trying to pretend that it's not relevant to the plot even though the only reason it's brought up is because it eventually will be. Again, it's not bad, but it means any scene that doesn't involve a step forward for Alita is just sort of plain. Still, I didn't find it to be enough to detract from the movie so much that I didn't enjoy it, but the good parts were so comparably good that these slower moments that felt like they should have had more poignancy about the world simply didn't, and it stood out against the action and the character moments.

The Short Version: Alita's ambition shines when the film revels in its incredible action scenes or explores the pure nature of its title character, but it isn't exempt from the trappings of a bland romance, clunky dialogue, and structure-warping lore.

Rating: 7/10

Published February 17th, 2019

Vice is Not Nice - 2019 Film Review

Directed by: Adam McKay
Written by: Adam McKay
Starring: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Steve Carell
IMDb Link

Vice has all the wit and timing of Cheney himself. For all its prestige actors and quirky ideas, the film is too often disengaging to the point of boredom, explaining every detail as laboriously as possible, and blaming the audience if they don't find it interesting.

The story follows many of the important beats in the life of former Vice President Dick Cheney (Bale), from his wild college years to constant ladder-climbing to his personal conflict being a Republican with a lesbian daughter, and capping off with his (to put it mildly) controversial work during the Bush administration. All of this is expressed through a particularly idiosyncratic lens by director Adam McKay, who tries to make the jump from a deliberately cliche presentation of his early years as a mixed bag but ultimately positive, even stepping in to full-on parody when it rolls credits over a happy ending half-way through the film, before the call from the Bush administration turns the movie in to an increasingly absurd attempt to remind people of just how cartoonishly evil he could be. It's an essentially noble idea, exposing the worst of a former administration in an effort to suggest why America has what it has now, but the film never goes beyond a very surface-level critique of those problems, bloviating endlessly about them but never offering more than a condemnation of the audience as a solution. The film seems to want to show the endless details in as tired a manner as possible to bore the audience to tears, then have a go at the audience for not paying attention to the political evil that went on, watching mindless action movies instead of "important" movies like Vice.

With that said, I don't buy that the boredom was intentional, even if the condemnation was. The film often delves in to a territory that could broadly be called "comedy", but so much of its schtick is as mind-numbing as its lecturing, and seemingly without point. Cheney orders Guantanamo torture techniques off of a menu in a restaurant, because creating absurdity through contrast is the only string to this movie's bow and it's going to try and play it in as many ways as it can. Any time the film doesn't throw an odd cutaway like this in the middle of a montage in an attempt to use The Big Short's leftovers, it turns obvious satire it never knows when to cut short. We can't know what was actually going through Dick and Lynne's minds as they pondered the offer of Vice-Presidency because people don't expose their thoughts through dialogue like they're in a Shakespearean play, so let's have a scene where Dick and Lynne Cheney expose their thoughts through dialogue like they're in a Shakespearean play, because nothing says "we have contempt for our audience" like turning an idea that would have been funny for about ten seconds in to an agonising minutes-long scene. Stuff like this both downplays the importance of what it's trying to explore and excludes the very audience it seeks to show that same importance to, which in turn clashes with the film's attempts to highlight just how absurdly, disturbingly evil the man's actions could be. The film wants very much for us to understand that Dick Cheney was a terrible person (shocking revelation, I know), but any attempts to explore the roots of what makes that sort of man are ultimately thrown by the wayside in its efforts to make every caricature involves behave increasingly arch.

There is more to these scenes thanks to performances from a cast of extremely talented actors. Bale exudes intensity as easily as breathing, which is par for the course with his career but nevertheless impressive, especially under the exceptional make-up work. The man is an inscrutable abyss, an unassuming yet undeniably powerful presence that carries the movie so hard it often leaves him weak of heart. Adams is similarly appropriate as Lynne at the best of times, the powerful woman behind the powerful man that convincingly pushes them to a place of absolute power. The other standout is Carell as Donald Rumsfeld; it's a cartoonish take that some will surely dislike, but he's the one who person who doesn't need "clever" juxtaposition through editing to be offensively funny. He's the one prominent comedic character in this supposed comedy, and his contrast with Bale is exactly the sort of dissonance for the sake of a few laughs that the movie goes for that actually works.

The Short Version: Vice is too caught up in its own self-importance and too critical of its own audience. So much of the film is a slog to get through because it painstakingly lectures the audience on plenty of details that are already common knowledge, without really adding any new insight, and any joke the film attempts to alleviate the boredom is so long-winded that it only adds to it. There's some slick performances and a good core idea on display, but it's not enough to elevate this experience beyond middling at best.

Rating: 5/10

Published February 10th, 2019 

2019 Film Review: Green Book (2018)

Directed by: Peter Farrelly
Written by: Peter Farrelly, Nick Vallelonga, Brian Hayes Currie
Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Mahershala Ali, Linda Cardellini
IMDb Link

I'll start posting there exclusively soon, but for now, my review is posted to my new site here.

Sometimes great actors go far beyond the material they are given. Such is the case with Green Book, a film tries and fails to reach further than the scope of its two leading characters, but whose leading men make far more out of their roles than most could.


The story follows Tony "Lip" Vallelonga (Mortensen), an Italian-American self-described "bullshit artist" who in a dry spell of work gets a job driving Dr. Don Shirley (Ali), an African-American piano master, on a two month tour through the Deep South in 1962. Through several charming anecdotes and uncomfortable, racially charged experiences, the two grow to become friends, almost by necessity. It's not exactly the most original story, but Green Book manages to put its strengths front and centre.

If nothing else, the performances from the film's two leads are fantastic. Mortensen embraces every facet of the character to create a trashy yet charming depiction of Vallelonga, the naive but street-smart archetype coming alive in a way that only a master of the craft can handle. It would be so easy for Vallelonga to devolve in to little more than broad stereotype, but Mortensen takes every opportunity he has to add that much more to the role than is first apparent, little immature moments weaved so naturally with his character-building moment, each step forward accompanied by a stumble that only has as much credibility as Mortensen gives it. Ali does just as well, ultimately more impressive for making his character as well-rounded and human with even less screen-time. We so rarely see the story from Shirley's perspective, yet Ali turns each moment we are alone with him in to a quiet realisation of what's going on inside him, saying nothing and yet priming viewers for his inevitable eruption. As strong as the two are on their own, they shine when they are together, their camaraderie despite their differences feeling so genuine despite the film's melodrama, the comedic moments where Vallelonga's naivete brushes up against Shirley's cultured demeanour, or Vallelonga balks at Shirley's lack of street experience, keeping the film going largely due to the work both leading men manage to accomplish together in just the space of a Cadillac.

The soundtrack is particularly noteworthy as well. The film generally rolls around playing jazz to keep the film light and breezy, any moments where things could get charged quickly forgotten as the film saunters to another anecdote with dulcet tones swinging every step. It also creates a strong contrast with Shirley's own classical work, and builds one of the film's primary themes in to the film itself. There's more examination of culture and class differences in the film's soundtrack then there is in the film proper, all the while doing its best to keep the film moving. That said, as much as the soundtrack and the leading performances work together to forge a good movie, it's not enough to make the film a great one.

What's bizarre about the experience is how much everything besides the lead performances and soundtrack weigh this feather-light film down. Several scenes are completely unnecessary for moving the story or characters forward, sometimes accomplishing nothing but re-iterating ideas present in the movie in the most on-the-nose and contrived way possible, without actually elaborating those ideas further. The film never builds to anything beyond the friendship between the two leading men, and any barrier to that is little more than a bump, yet it often attempts to insert conflict where it need not be, and so flaccidly that it comes off as little more than cheap and cheesy melodrama. Any narrative conflict seems to be used as little more than window dressing for more scenes of excellent actors acting excellently, any conversations the film has regarding race or class or social disconnect or sexuality are just another tool in the actor's toolbox. Then there's the framing of the film, which manages to flesh out Mortensen's Vallelonga considerably, because it tells the whole story from his perspective, but in the case of Ali's Shirley, the film had to rely mostly on Ali's magnificent charisma. It's almost like this film was put together using a series of charming anecdotes that Vallelonga told to his son, with no real connective tissue other than the two people involved, and embellished for the sake of seeming more significant than it actually is, before being re-told here by that same son. Almost.

Perhaps that's a little cynical of me to say in a movie that attempts so hard to be heartwarming, and know that I do recommend the film on the basis of its performances and soundtrack alone, but so much else in this film feels limited or shallow in its perspective, and seemingly unable to get away from obvious cliches, and as a result the overall experience too often seems fake. It's a movie that's saved by its performances, by two people too good at their jobs to let a movie be bad when they have so much understanding of good character work, breathing life in to material that otherwise offers such empty expressions of its ideas.

The Short Version: Stellar performances hold up a meandering story that charms when it tries to be funny but lays it on far too thick and with no self-awareness when it tries to tug at heartstrings.

Rating: 6.5/10

Published February 1st, 2019

2019 Film Review: Dragon Ball Super: Broly (2018)

Directed by: Tatsuya Nagamine
Written by: Akira Toriyama
Starring: Sean Schemmel, Christopher Sabat, Vic Mignogna
IMDb Link

New Blog Link

As a long-time fan of the Dragon Ball franchise, this was everything I wanted it to be and more, with levels of hype and fan indulgence only a show about super-powered alien apes becoming gods by fighting each other can create. That said, if you're not already a fan, I can't see this offering a particularly fulfilling experience, so if you're looking for a jumping off point for the show, this isn't it.

After a Super-Saiyan load of set-up where we learn the retconned details about the backstories of Goku (Schemmel), Vegeta (Sabat), and Broly (Mignogna), the film brings the three Saiyans together via a newly revived Lord Frieza (Christopher Ayres) and has them battle it out because Broly is damaged by his father and neither Goku nor Vegeta are one to turn down a fight. There's some scant themes about legacy and fatherhood amidst the battle, as Broly's complex but antagonistic relationship with his father informs most of the fight's turns, and Goku quickly realises how Broly is being manipulated, but for the most part the film is half build-up, half fight.

While the build-up is sometimes slow or awkward as the film needs to re-explain a dozen or so pieces of lore that most fans of the show are already aware of and that aren't enough to catch up non-fans on their own, the fight is the main event, and it almost never disappoints. The sense of scale is lost a bit as a quick reference to how their energy could destroy the planet if they touched Earth is seemingly forgotten as endless barrages of energy blasts somehow keep their destruction contained to one continent, but the fight's escalation is damn-near perfect, first earning a few points from Vegeta fans as he kicks Broly around effortlessly, before Broly himself begins to tap in to and learn to harness his power, losing all sense of self and becoming a mindless engine of destruction, literally learning techniques on the fly and brutalising the other two Saiyans effortlessly. It all looks breathtaking too, the sort of raw power on display is animated gorgeously as the film swirls around a constantly crumbling landscape, the force behind each fighter's punches and blasts given the extra oomph they need to pop on-screen dazzlingly.

That said, what made the experience for me was the sense of humour. While Dragon Ball has for the longest time had an identity as "that show where muscular men scream for twenty minutes", it's always had a funny side too. The whole conflict begins because both Bulma and Frieza are looking for the eponymous Dragon Balls, not for infinite wealth or immortality, but (for Bulma) to be younger or (for Frieza) to be taller, but not so much younger or taller that it looks unnatural. The once villainous God of Destruction Beerus has to be the one to watch Bulma and Vegeta's baby while they save the world. Goku and Vegeta's failed attempts at fusing are interspersed with Frieza getting the absolute crap beaten out of him. Despite the film's world-ending and hype-building nature, it never lets go of a slightly whimsical tone that makes the whole experience that much more fun. There isn't exactly substance here, but there is a vision for what the collective audience wants, and the film delivers spectacularly.

The Short Version: No amount of preamble or clunky, unnecessary dialogue is enough to dilute the raw, unadulterated indulgence this movie offers to fans. The themes are barely explored and the content is so steeped in the lore that only long-time admirers will find it appealing, but I am one, so for me this was nothing short of glorious.

Rating: Gogeta and Broly punch each other so hard that they rip holes in to other dimensions/10

Published January 28th, 2019

2019 Film Review: The Favourite (2018)

Directed by: Yorgos Lanthimos
Written by: Deborah Davis, Tony McNamara
Starring: Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz
IMDb Link

As before, I'm putting together a slightly more presentable new website, and you can read the review for The Favourite there as well.

Between The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, this was by far the least weird and most coherent movie I've seen from Yorgos Lanthimos. I'm sure some people will miss the utter absurdity of his work, but personally if he continues to work with people who write movies as fantastic as this then I'll take the compromise.

The story follows Queen Anne (Colman), her best friend Lady Sarah (Weisz), and the newly hired scullery maid Abigail (Stone), as each of them play one another to achieve their goals. Abigail, once noble but now fallen, hired only because Lady Sarah is family, offers a kindness to the Queen that puts her in the position of the Queen's personal servant, allowing Abigail a chance to lie, cheat and manipulate her way to a position of power once more. Lady Sarah, the real influence behind the throne, has her own concerns with keeping the Queen in check, with a war to run and her sights set on greater power, not one to let some upstart take her place so easily. The Queen, stricken and frail with loss, is simply happy to let the other two quarrel over her, less concerned with the power she wields and more satisfied with feeling wanted.

The film's writing is incredible, and the performances of the three leads sells it completely. The characters can't even get half-way through a conversation before someone slips an insult in like poison in to tea, and the power of the words they doll out is juxtaposed cleverly against the appearance of a stiff upper lip, only for such a facade to be broken down over and over and over again. It also contrasts with the approach of the men in the movie, particularly Leader of the Opposition Harley (played with delicious extravagance by Nicolas Hoult), whose failures at maintaining respect are met with instant and hilariously brutal responses (his character has one of the best utterances of the word "c*nt" put to film). There's almost never a dull moment, as the characters build up Machiavellian plans in such a way for the audience to have a sumptuous feast of comedic irony, or meet an expected turn that then jolts with shock humour.

What adds so much to it all is the nuance in the performances, the writing and the tone. Abigail is at first vulnerable, and there's a great sense of triumph at her successes when she's downtrodden, but as the film goes on that triumph turns to guilt. Likewise, Lady Sarah is deceptive enough to always carry a minor hatred beneath her marvelous charm, but despite her actions there's an undeniable sympathy for her at her nadir. Both Stone and Weisz manage to play these complex roles to extraordinary effect, each playing to the writing's strengths and working with one another to create characters that become more interesting with every word spoken between them, but even they are somewhat overshadowed by the prodigious work of Colman. Queen Anne at first appears as little more than naivete, a sickly blank slate for Abigail's and Lady Sarah's plans to bounce off of, yet by the end of the film she is an absolute powerhouse that shows how little all of their work added up to. This transformation doesn't come easy either, it's earned through the rare moments where the film drops its own facade of arch people doing arch things for the sake of absurdity and reminds the audience that the people can still be real and wounded and struggling. The film plays to this slow revelation of the Queen's character in these moments too, the walls blurring and turning, and her face stricken with fear and disorientation. It's a piece the film didn't need in order to be good, yet its inclusion elevates the film to rare heights of excellence, and Colman plays and indelible role in the character's realisation.

The Short Version: The interplay between the three leading ladies is truly magnificent, and its measured combination of wit, irony and shock humour makes The Favourite utterly charming, while the deliberate tonal shifts and moments of distorted perspective help to emphasise the nuance of the commanding performances of the core cast.

Rating: 9/10

Published January 25th, 2019

2019 Film Review: Glass (2019)

Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan
Written by: M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: James McAvoy, Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson
IMDb Link

Before I get started, I just want to say that I'm putting together a new site for my reviews, where I have also posted my review for Glass. You can follow the link to my new site here.

Unbreakable was a piece ahead of its time, approaching super hero stories with a grounded and intimate perspective that saw the value in the both the literal and metaphorical value of super heroes. At the best of times, Glass reflects further development of Unbreakable's deconstructionist ideas, even if that development is coming nearly two decades and one super hero renaissance too late; the rest of the time, the film is so awkward and heavy-handed that the execution of those ideas devalues them.

Since Unbreakable, David Dunn (Willis), still super-powered and weak to water, is running his own security service with his son while doing secret super hero work on the side, in the process coming in to conflict with The Horde (McAvoy), all 24 identities of an extreme DID case, fresh off a few killing sprees after Split. The first third of the movie does a really good job of establishing the movie's tone and character motivations, jumping between the sombre heroics of Dunn and the creeping horror of The Horde's cult-like perspective on their superhuman identity, The Beast; the two come together in a way that is somehow both self-serious and unapologetically goofy, a factor that gets amplified when their conflict ultimately gets them thrown in an insane asylum alongside Elijah Price (Jackson), also known as Mr. Glass, under the care of Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson), who seeks to cure them of their collective comic book delusion. Here the movie becomes slow, contemplative, toeing a strange line between things that are somewhat clever and things that are intentionally dumb, sometimes carrying the ideas re-established in the first third and other times beating the audience of their heads with self-aware super hero stuff, all while lacking that same self-awareness when it comes to the mental health stuff. Unfortunately, the film goes off the rails when it tries to ramp things back up again, packing thematically appropriate twists on top of completely mindless twists and never quite finding the clarity of purpose in presenting all of them when some don't mesh at all, getting silly in a bad way towards the final few scenes. None of this is helped by the film's dialogue, which has the same inconsistency, sometimes nauseatingly meta, and other times layered enough to be smart. Still, in this uneven mess there are a few standouts that made experience worthwhile, mostly in the performances.

McAvoy is incredible in his reprisal, shifting between each identity with the slightest adjustments in posture, expression, or tone of voice, creating images of people that are distinct from one another despite all occupying the same body. Similarly, his character is far more well developed in this, positioned with an opportunity to explore the character of Kevin Wendell Crumb, the man behind all of the identities, in a way that actually allows him to have an arc and be more than just a villain with a thematic tie-in to the ideas of the film. These two strengths allow for one incredible moment among several bad ones in the film's finale that makes what was once an object of horror completely sympathetic, and while the noisy nonsense happening around it could potentially drown out the weight of such a moment, McAvoy's performance keeps the film from falling in to disarray completely. There's also Jackson, whose performance is appropriately arch, sometimes little more than a twitch and at other times offering the most hammy of deliveries to make the movie's baffling dialogue digestible, even if Mr. Glass doesn't have the same nuance as he did in Unbreakable, and the most added to his story is a set of twists that do nothing to change the character.

It's the strange thing about Glass; so many aspects clash with one another, too over-the-top to be dull but not focused enough to work effectively most of the time, and yet when things fit together, the movie manages to shine. There's no shortage of intention, either; each step the movie takes, whether misstep or magic, is done with the most deliberate choice, almost trying to find a completely different movie in the movie the audience is looking for. It doesn't make for a particularly entertaining experience outside of the film's best moments, but the movie is still fascinating to behold for not just what it tries to do and succeeds at, but how it fails as well.

The Short Version: While the dialogue is painfully obnoxious at times and so many twists stacked on top of one another flatten the emotional impact of some of the later scenes, Glass manages to get by on a strong set of performances, particularly McAvoy and Jackson, a tone that isn't afraid to be a little goofy at times, and a few thematic punches I was impressed it even attempted to land.

Rating: 6/10

Published January 21st, 2019

The Best and Worst Movies of 2018

There are 365 films that I watched for the first time in 2018, and a good chunk of those were released in 2018, so I have opinions on the quality of a few of them, and I thought I'd leave them here.

Before I start, I would like to say that, even though I saw dozens of 2018 films in 2018, I still missed several that have been highly acclaimed (and several more that are on everyone's 'worst' lists), or have not yet had the chance to see some because Australia gets everything last (seriously, If Beale Street Could Talk is one of my most anticipated movies that came out this year and it doesn't get released until next February here). If there's anything on here among the best that you think I missed, tell me, I'm always happy to watch new films and see where they take me.

The Best Movies that are actually 2017 movies but Australia gets everything last.

These are the movies that had wide release in 2017, were made eligible for awards in 2017, and ended up on everyone else's 'Best of 2017' lists, but didn't get to Australia until all of that happened. Each of these movies is fantastic, and absolutely deserving of a watch, but I didn't want to include them on the list of the best of 2018 because most of them could easily fit and I wanted that list to focus on movies that received wide release and recognition in 2018.

Call Me By Your Name
Lady Bird
Phantom Thread
The Shape of Water

Honourable Mentions

As always, there are movies that didn't quite make the top cut, and this year was especially difficult because of just how many really good movies came out this year; from wacky and provocative original concepts to examinations of careers that have influenced genres, writing, and culture, to some surprisingly excellent conventional work, this year has been chock full of good film, and though I don't feel these are the absolute peak, they are still some of the best movies given wide release in 2018.

Annihilation
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
BlacKkKlansman
First Reformed
Leave No Trace
Sorry to Bother You
Upgrade
Won't You Be My Neighbour?

The 5 Best Movies of 2018

What that title doesn't tell you is that this is where my biases for Horror and Animation show themselves once more.

5. Mandy

I've watched this four times and I'm still not tired of it. The definition of style over substance (or, depending on your perspective, substance via style), with the most engrossing visuals, the most haunting soundtrack, and a career-defining performance from Nicolas Cage that show the very best of this incredible horror mood-piece.

4. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

This movie could have earned a spot on this list for its animation alone, but the film is so much more than that. The sheer creativity of blending both the story and the animation with comic book style, as well as the emotional resonance with which the story expresses itself, puts this film close to the top of its genre, and similarly close to the top of this year's films.

3. Hereditary

Essentially proof that classically-styled horror can still work in this day and age, Hereditary is leaps and bounds ahead of what most of the genre is doing right now, combining the old with the new and really hammering home the concept of what horror is at its best: allegory for something else that's so real it's more uncomfortable than the actual horror.

2. Paddington 2

This is basically perfect, so see it. If you don't, you'll know the discomfort of a judgmental stare from a teddy bear.

1. Roma

I don't throw out the term 'masterpiece' lightly (unless I'm being hyperbolic, which I'm not in this case). It's the sort of thing that cuts to the heart of verisimilitude in the cinematic experience in a way few films do, and it is utterly enthralling because of it.

Dishonourable Mentions

Not every bad movie is the worst, and there's far less here than among the good movies, but these are still movies bad enough it felt worth mentioning them, but not quite so bad that I want them commemorated as part of the worst of the year.

Alien Predator*
Extinction
Lake Placid: Legacy*
Life Itself
Mute
The Titan
Truth or Dare

*These were both cheap B-movies so forgettable I almost forgot to put them on this list, so as bad as they are, I can hardly remember a thing about them, nor did I actually expect anything from them.

The 5 Worst Movies of 2018

I don't often like to be negative about movies, because they're such a magical means for us to tell stories and they've produced some of the most incredible visual experiences of my life; they're captured pieces of our imagination shown to the whole world to give us a chance to feel every emotion, from sheer delight to utter horror to complete fury. That said, some films fail at this spectacularly, and sometimes those terrible experiences are memorable enough to worth mentioning.

5. The Cloverfield Paradox

A cheap excuse to throw a million scary ideas at the wall and see if any of them stick couple with cynical name branding for easy recognition that's only worsened by the weak and pointless attempts to connect the events of the film to Cloverfield.

4. The Predator 

A movie that might one day be good with a director's cut, but until then is one of the most painful examples of horrible editing I've ever seen, made all the worse in my experience by my adoration of the franchise and my hope for its future being dashed against the rocks of studio meddling.

3. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

On the other hand, this is what happens when a studio can't tell its writer to reign things in and that writer believes far too much in their own hype. The Crimes of Grindelwald is two hours of non-story designed to excite the audience for another movie that fails spectacularly because it's too concerned with hiding information from the audience for the sake of a few insanely stupid twists and doesn't seem to care for theme or characterisation.

2. Fifty Shades Freed 

I don't feel like ice cream anymore.

1. Holmes and Watson

This was somehow both lifeless and aggressively unfunny, without single well-executed idea and painfully boring at almost all time; essentially the antithesis of good comedy in every way.

Published December 30th, 2018, Happy Birthday to me.